Tuesday, 14 February 2012

Persuasive Essay: Have people become overly dependent on technology?

Technology. Perhaps you've heard of it. Perhaps you have spent every single day sitting placing your head in a fixed position in front of a bright laptop computer screen, clicking away as countless hours pass through your fingers. Perhaps you've spent pondering over the conditions of your thumbs after ruthlessly throwing them about on your latest piece of phone technology, endlessly texting friends upon friends about useless subjects that could probably be forgotten in a matter of moments. Perhaps you've spent days upon days indoors, almost relying your total attention span to the speed of your internet, hoping to avoid that unsatisfied moment of your Facebook page unable to be completely loaded between the seconds of time you take to quickly glance at your undone homework assignments and back to the screen. Technology. Perhaps you've heard of it. Every phone, every laptop, every computer, every car. Every flat screen TV, every video game console. Technology. Perhaps we live it.

With the revolutionary concept of super-advanced artificial intelligence being able to have the ability to aid us in accomplishing our own tasks, there is bound to be controversy. We live in a world today where the world is dominated by technology. Where consumers are constantly demanding the availability of the latest tech, whether it be an Apple phone, or a Microsoft laptop. The world is consumed by the continuous development of technology, with each new creation adding a new feature to helping us achieve whatever we wanted to achieve. And thus, that leads us to the question: "Have people become overly dependent on technology?" By all means, I'm not complaining about technology itself. I myself am a tech junkie. I usually tend to search for the news reporting on rumors of upcoming products from Apple, I'm not going to lie. However, every now and then I do take time to recognize the impact that technology has on us, and I ponder over the idea of whether technology is inherently consuming us as people, whether we are slowly being controlled by it and eventually completely dependent on it. Perhaps that affect has already begun, we just have yet to realize it. However, as a statement, yes, I do believe that people have become overly dependent on technology.

The impact of technology on us as people could be shown in various ways. People are quick to assume, for example, that its impact has us forever driving in cars instead of walking, immediately assuming that exercise has decreased due to the advancement in technology, which is a fair argument. However, none take the time to observe the small features we're given with the technology, and the large impact that is accompanied by it. One of these features is the Spellcheck tool, accessible within any Microsoft Word application on any brand of laptop or desktop computer. Now, as a passionate English student, I guess you could consider me to be a type of Grammar Nazi, however, the constant accessibility of Spellchecker and the fact that we as students rely on spellcheck to automatically correct every spelling and grammatical mistake immediately indicates a major dependancy on technology, and is ultimately a concerning topic. Why? Because spelling is essentially a fairly basic aspect of writing; from its pure origin, spelling has been essential to the progression of the English language and worldwide languages themselves, and for it to be relied upon technology signifies its impact on the world today, and essentially its impact on the growing students of the near future. Perhaps it could be being used simply because students are too lazy to fix it themselves, but even then, that could even be another piece of evidence of how people are too reliant on technology nowadays. Through the recent accessibility to countless Apple and Microsoft products equipped with Microsoft Word, there is a slim chance of spellcheck being abandoned any time near in the future.

And then of course, there is the internet itself. The essential global system that almost tyrannically seized the attention of the world in a matter of years. As arguably the smartest piece of technology, the internet has allowed us to perform abilities that could not have even been dreamt of 50 or 100 years prior to today. Its abilities to allow us to communicate across the world, chat and converse with friends you never thought you'd ever see again and at the same time allow us to access search engines that allow us to research and learn on our own have evidently contributed to the progress and advancement of the world. Based on the English language only, the use of the internet has increased by around 281% over the past 10 years. There are approximately 565,004,126 English internet users. Half of a billion people use the internet in the English language, with the Chinese language trailing not far behind, standing at a rate of 509,965,013 users. Together, there is already a result of 1 billion internet users, out of a population of 7 billion people, based on only two different languages. The world currently holds an average of 68 hours per month online, with the Google search engine holding the #1 most searched website. The incredible increase of internet usage and the significant statistic of internet users based off two languages essentially illustrates an idea of the vast number of people that use the internet in total. However, despite the large number, it isn't the amount of people that use it that signifies the dependency on technology; it's the increase of usage. In 10 years, it increased 281%. That statistic alone indicates a growing reliance on the abilities of the technological tools that we have been given to this day.

To this day, we have been given countless opportunities to explore and learn through the usage of technology. The Apple computers used at home and at school that provide us with access to work materials and applications are now used on an everyday basis. The world has changed through the introduction of the Technological Era that we live in. We are over reliant on our Facebook accounts and our text messaging and iPhones and Androids as a tool for ways of communication. We are over reliant on Spellcheck and technology itself to help solve basic errors of the English language. We are over reliant upon the idea that the internet can help us at any time, anywhere. Technology. Perhaps you've heard of it. Technology. Perhaps we're living it.

6 comments:

Great job! I liked your use of factual evidence (like "In 10 years, it increased 281%") to help persuade the reader. You use strong vocabulary and powerful persuasive techniques like asking questions to make the reader reflect on their own life and how dependent he/she is on technology. I wasn't really sure whether you were trying to persuade the audience that we are becoming more dependent on technology, or if we are becoming TOO dependent on it. Because certain readers might not think its such a bad thing, since technology is generally dependable.

Your repetition of hypothetical statements using the word "perhaps" was effective in provoking thought and change. Yes, overuse of technology is changing our society, and you made that point effectively. However, I loved your point that technology allows us to grow and explore, so that you provide positive examples as well. Great analysis and use of evidence.

Amazing hook and ending- they wrap your essay up neatly. I figured, since your entire hook is a paragraph, that the rest of the introduction had to be separated. That, necessarily, is not an issue, because I could read it better because of that anyways. You repeated the statistic of 281% increase of internet usage twice, which seemed as if you were grasping for straws, and a bit of sentence rearranging can fix that. But the statistics were a powerful tidbit that really complimented your hook and ending, because it's almost a use of irony, which really stirs me up. Your voice is perfect- this casual usage of personal examples, yet maintaining an intelligent countenance, which gave the impression of an empathic, thoughtful individual. Somebody you can listen to, in my opinion, making your essay much more believable. Great work, I can't wait to see more essays like this from you!

Wow, great job! Your hook was really effective and really made the reader think about how much technology has taken over their life. I really like that you used so many examples that we could relate to, and issues that we deal with everyday. I have no suggestions, I think you did a great job and definitely made me think about how much technology has affected me.

"Perhaps you've spent days upon days indoors, almost relying your total attention span to the speed..." is a bit awkward phrasing--it "bumps" us out just a touch.

You have a very interesting essay here, Ilya, but I'm a little foggy on whether you're saying we are TOO dependent on it or not? You are saying we ARE dependent on it, but you being a little too diplomatic for a persuasive essay. I'm not clear about whether this is good or bad?! Your paragraph with the statistics of usage is a little off topic. We know a LOT of people us it--so what's your point with that information?

So, overall, I think this is very interesting and I love some of your phrases and lines--just brilliant, but overall, the essay needed more focused ideas and more of a clear answer to the question.